Citizen’s Alliance for 2000 General Elections Should Compensate for Blackballing

A ruling came out that leaders of Citizen’s Alliance for 2000 General Elections, a coalition of 467 civic groups, which waged a campaign to urge voters to shun candidates viewed as corrupt in the April 4th parliamentary elections in 2000, should compensate those who got damage from the campaign.

This ruling is expected to bring following suits from politicians who were “blackballed” by the campaign, while civic groups are likely to protest against this ruling. This is the first time that court acknowledged civil liability as well as criminal liability of the coalition of civic groups for its blackballing campaign.

The Seoul District Court handed a ruling Sept 26 that the former lawmaker Lee Jong-chan(presently advisor of the Millennium Democratic Party) was not elected and suffered a lot because of the coalition’s campaign, awarding 10 million won damages to Lee Jong-chan in a suit against four leaders of the coalition, including Choi Yeol, a co-leader of Citizen’s Alliance for 2000 General Elections.

The Court related, “The coalition’s campaign targeting candidates viewed as unqualified is against the Public Offices Election Law, regardless of the result of the elections, and it also constitutes stopping Mr. Lee from exercising political rights including the right to hold public office. Therefore, the Citizen’s Alliance should compensate Mr. Lee for the emotional pain he suffered from.

The court added that the blackballing campaign could be considered right given its pursuing public goods, but it is not justifiable in that the coalition disregarded the spirit of the election law and guidelines of the election management committee.

Mr. Choi, a co-leader of the coalition, and Park Won-soon, a co-chairman of the standing executive committee of it led the campaign in which the coalition revealed a list of 22 candidates who should be not elected. And currently they were indicted on charges of violation of the Public Offices Election Law and they got fines of 500,000 won in the first and second cases. Now they appealed to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Lee, who ran unsuccessfully for the National Assembly in Jong-no, Seoul, filed a lawsuit against Choi Yeol, Park Won-soon, and Ji Eun-hee, a co-leader of the coalition claiming 100 million won damages after his bid failed.